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RaceVClass 29 - 11 Apr 2012 - Main.SanjayMurti
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| | I realize this is going to be a pretty damn controversial post, but I feel compelled to speak on the subject. I sometimes become concerned that classism becomes too easily conflated with racism in our world.
There's many draws to calling a certain policy racist: | | | It would simply be dishonest for me to concede that I think Kipp’s sense of alienation, as he has articulated it, is something I find understandable or something we should be “wary of” causing, as Toma put it. We live in a white supremacist country. As Shefali stated earlier, “…classism is inextricably linked to racism. The way the country has been structured since its creation has caused this. Though it is possible to speak strictly about classism in certain contexts, I believed that in most other contexts this would lead to a very incomplete discussion about the issue.” Kipp’s suggestion that we engage in more class discussion that takes the “whiteness” out of it because the alternative alienates him sounds like someone who is confusing being “blamed” and “accused of being the problem” with people pointing out that he has an implicated identity- a social reality that can’t be sugarcoated. It’s a mischaracterization to say that when people point that out during race and class discussions they are propagating an adversarial white v. all paradigm. As a middle class American who consumes and uses products produced by people who are forced to work under oppressive conditions in developing countries, I have an implicated identity. I am implicated in their oppression, and I benefit from it. If someone pointed that out at a talk I went to, I would willing concede the point even though I'm not actively trying to oppress anyone. If at that same talk, someone said “all middle-class Americans are greedy savages,” I’d likely find that to be a reductive characterization and not very helpful. It may even upset me (But not in the same way as it would upset me to be called a racial epithet as we all know that discrimination that goes vertically downward is not the functional equivalent of that which goes vertically upward, and it's silly to pretend otherwise). But I wouldn’t assume that because I’m implicated by the very nature of my identity that means I can’t still join the struggle to alleviate the suffering of poor people. I wouldn’t say that I feel “alienated.” And if I did feel that way, I wouldn’t harp on about and privilege that “alienation” as if it’s the most important thing at stake. I would see that as a separate matter I need to grapple with on my own, not something to be tied in with a general discussion about how I think people should conceptualize class. I would imagine that might sound like asking for accommodation. And when Kipp did that, it honestly did sound like some form of privilege to me, even though he wasn’t talking about white privilege at the time, because I haven’t developed this resistance to being made uncomfortable, or this idea that my own personal discomfort caused by people who have less privilege than myself is something to start a thread about or should directly inform how those people shape their politics. That's a very foreign impulse to me. But now that Kipp has done that, he should expect that people will want to probe and push back against it, and should not completely dismiss that as “acerbic language” that “furthers the racial divide.”
-- RumbidzaiMaweni - 11 Apr 2012 | |
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I don't think we're all that far apart in perspective. Kipp can handle himself though (and I don't want to ascribe my thoughts to him), so from here on out, these are just my views.
I agree that race (like any other subject) should be on the table for discussion whenever it is relevant, and that others' personal feeling of discomfort should not limit expression. However, I think Toma's post highlights a valuable distinction in what expression is productive and what isn't. I don't agree that abstaining from engaging in "othering" is a lofty platitude with no practical value. Discussing race to further mutual understanding is important; using it as a bludgeon to promote adversarial conflict is wrong. I think Rumbi and I are sort of in agreement here. She can correct me if not, but she makes a point that Kipp may be confusing his "implicated identity" being pointed out as being "blamed" and made an adversary. I can't speak to his confusion much beyond what Kipp shared in his example, which is to say, not much. Still, I do think there are instances where race is still used as an "us vs. them" tool that doesn't work to dismantle "white supremacy," but to further a feeling of "otherness" for both/all parties.
One final point as to implicated identities. I'm of the opinion (and this is a worldview that I don't necessarily believe is the only correct one) that race should never implicate negative identities to people. The concept that someone who devotes her life to ending racial/social/class-based strife is somehow a contributor to the problem solely because of the color of her skin is antithetic to my view of improving racial relations. She can no more change her race than I can. The post-racial world that Toma (and, to some extent, Eben) discusses requires one of two things - adding negative racial connotations to those who don't experience them or removing them from those that do. I'd prefer to live in the latter world.
-- SanjayMurti - 11 Apr 2012 |
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